ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) – About 30,000 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, many wearing red shirts, showed up at Disneyland for the eighth annual Gay Days event at the happiest place on earth.

The weekend event included appearances by 1980s pop princess Tiffany and stars of Showtime’s “Queer As Folk” cable television show.

“It’s great to see a force out there. You realize how many there really are out here,” said Kevyn McCall, 41, of La Habra. “Disneyland’s very gay friendly, tolerant to everyone.”

Gay Days founder Jeffrey Epstein said the event was designed to create a day where the GLBT community could get together without fear of stares or insults.

Disney rents space to organizers, just like any other group, but does not sponsor Gay Days.

“Disneyland welcomes everyone every day,” Disney spokesperson Bob Tucker said.

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) – Protesters greeted military recruiters at Stanford Law School with signs and noise, saying that policies excluding gays, lesbians and bisexuals from the service are discriminatory.

“We’re not anti-military. We’re opposed to the policy that excludes gays,” said John Polito, 30, who organized the protest.

Stanford Law School doesn’t permit recruiters on campus who discriminate. But a 1997 federal law requires that campuses allow military recruiters or risk losing federal grants.

Five Stanford Law School students initially said they were interested in the military’s Judge Advocate General Corps. But only one student scheduled an interview, and that student canceled.

HONOLULU (AP) – The American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion asking a federal court to promptly halt the alleged harassment and abuse of gay prisoners at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility, citing immediate dangers to those inmates at the state’s youth prison.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit last month on behalf of three detainees at the facility who said they were harassed and abused either because they were gay, lesbian or transgender or because people believed they were gay.

But Lois Perrin, the legal director for the ACLU in Hawaii, said allowing the state to act only until after the lawsuit made its way through the court would “leave these youth in danger.”

The ACLU filed a foot-and-a-half deep stack of papers with the U.S. District Court backing up its motion seeking a preliminary injunction, said Vanessa Chong, the executive director of the ACLU of Hawaii.

“We feel there is an urgency to the day-to-day living for the … youth at the facility,” Chong said. “The changes are coming way too slowly.”

Lisa Ginoza, the state’s first deputy attorney general, declined comment because her office was still reviewing the motion.

The Office of Youth Affairs did not return a phone call seeking comment.

The ACLU said male inmates repeatedly harassed another male inmate they believed was gay and threatened to rape him. They also rubbed semen into his face, the organization said.

The youth prison did nothing when the targeted inmate complained, the ACLU said.

In another case, youth correctional officers allegedly told a lesbian inmate and her girlfriend that their relationship was “bad” and they “were going to hell,” the ACLU said.

The Kailua facility has been the subject of several ACLU lawsuits and an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, which described the lockup as “existing in a state of chaos.”

The Justice Department released a report in August saying poorly trained and unsupervised guards exploited and used excessive force against teenage inmates while failing to protect them from harm.

The highly critical 29-page report said the constitutional and federal statutory rights of the youth prisoners were being violated.

BALTIMORE (AP) – A man who was arrested last year and charged with a 1974 murder pleaded guilty in connection with the killing and was sentenced to a 20-year prison term, with all but three years suspended.

Michael Hughes, 58, was arrested in September 2004 in Boston for allegedly stabbing a man he thought was gay. He had been arrested several times since the Baltimore killing but was only connected when a Boston transit police booking officer discovered Hughes was using several aliases and ran a fingerprint check.

He was charged with fatally shooting 40-year-old McKinley Johnson, Jr. at the New Fulton Tavern on Christmas Eve in 1974.

Johnson was killed while making Christmas baskets and giving them away at a West Baltimore bar, something he did every Christmas. When a man stole a can of Spam out of one of the baskets, Johnson confronted him and was shot.

“That’s what made it so bad – him dying on Christmas,” Helen Fogg, the mother of Johnson’s 35-year-old son, said after Hughes was arrested. “I was devastated. I was depressed for quite a while. I couldn’t believe someone would take his life over something as stupid as a can of Spam.”

Hughes pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and a handgun violation, the Baltimore state’s attorney’s office said. Baltimore Circuit Judge John M. Glynn sentenced Hughes to 20 years in prison, suspending all but three years. Glynn called it a “clear case of justice delayed being justice denied,” The Sun of Baltimore reported.

During court proceedings, Assistant State’s Attorney Mark P. Cohen said that he had no option but to offer a low sentence because most witnesses in the case had died, making a successful prosecution unlikely.

Cynthia Johnson, McKinley Johnson’s sister, told WJZ-TV, “I’m glad it’s over because it’s been a long time. It’s been a real long time. “…my mother, she took it to her grave.”

Hughes was arrested in Boston after he verbally assaulted a man he believed was gay, then slashed him repeatedly with a small knife, transit police said. The victim was treated and released.

Police in Boston said Hughes had been arrested several times in Boston, but the previous arrests occurred before a national fingerprint matching system. Hughes had used at least three aliases in that city, police said.

After Hughes’ most recent arrest, a booking officer discovered Hughes’ aliases and used a fingerprint identification system to match Hughes to the Baltimore homicide case.

Hughes was working as a drug counselor at a homeless shelter in Boston.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – A protest by a Kansas hate group before a funeral for an Oklahoma soldier killed in Iraq has prompted a Moore lawmaker to propose “The Oklahoma Funeral Protection Act.”

“For any group, church or organization to picket or protest at anyone’s funeral – and especially the funerals of United States service members who give their blood and lives for their country in Iraq and Afghanistan – is unacceptable,” said Rep. Paul Wesselhoft.

Ten members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., staged a protest in Newkirk on July 23 as members of the town of 2,300 gathered to mourn the death of Army Spc. Jared D. Hartley, who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

The group is headed by the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., a disbarred attorney. It has staged anti-gay protests across the nation, carrying signs with racial and anti-Semitic overtones and often condemning other Christian denominations who do not share their views.

It contends the death of American soldiers in Iraq is part of God’s wrath against a country where homosexuality is flourishing.

Newkirk Police Chief John Hobbs said after consultation with the city attorney, the group was allowed to protest prior to the funeral in Newkirk, but had to leave 30 minutes before the service begin, or risk running afoul of existing state law.

Hobbs said it is a misdemeanor in Oklahoma to cause a disturbance at a funeral or to interfere with a funeral procession.

The antics of the protesters were “pretty hard to take,” said Hobbs, a Vietnam War veteran. He said a U.S. flag dangled upside down from the pocket of one female protester. “She dragged it on the ground and kept stepping on it.”

He said he had to get between an irate local firefighter and the demonstrators at one point, telling the firefighter the protesters were baiting him to start a fight so they could file a lawsuit.

“I told him we have to put our personal feelings aside and enforce the law for everyone,” Hobbs said.

He said he believes the soldier’s family members arrived for the service after the protesters had left.

Wesselhoft, R-Moore, is proposing to make it a misdemeanor offense to picket or otherwise demonstrate within 500 feet of where a funeral is being held and within two hours of the time a funeral is to begin or to end.

“I am not regulating content of speech,” he said, adding that protesters can still exercise their First Amendment Rights, just not at a funeral.

“Grieving families have rights, too,” he said.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – The mayor of Knoxville declined issuing a city proclamation and speaking at a gay rally and festival scheduled for Oct. 15, but he will be sending a representative, event organizers said.

Mayor Bill Haslam was invited by the Rainbow Community Awareness Project, which is organizing the event to be held at Market Square in downtown Knoxville. Organizers hope it will be one of the largest events for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community held in east Tennessee.

While organizers said they were disappointed with the mayor’s move, they were thankful for the recognition of having a representative of the city attend: Bill Lyons, the city’s senior director of policy development. State Rep. Harry Tindell, D-Knoxville, also is scheduled to be there.

“We cannot say the city is supporting us,” said Gary Elgin, RCAP’s director. “Support and recognition are two different things. … But I’m not going to make a big stink about it, because we are making progress.”

The city has received some criticism from local residents for showing any recognition of the event, which was expected, Lyons said.

“We’ve had some correspondence … from people who are not pleased with the event, of any participation in it,” he said. “I would not use the word ‘threats.’ They only voiced concern. We’ve gotten e-mails and phone calls that were appreciative as well.”

Elgin and Beth Maples-Bays, board member of the Tennessee Equality Project, said the parade and rally would celebrate members of the community, not stereotypes.

“I think what you’re going to see is a lot of moms and dads, a lot of elders, a lot of ordinary people who you see every day, who don’t wear a big sign that says ‘I’m gay,’” Maples-Bays said. “I hope [critics] might withhold judgment until they see the parade.”

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Copies of a movie aimed at a Mormon audience have been pulled from store shelves after a recording mix-up left buyers watching Adored: Diary of a Porn Star instead of the squeaky clean Sons of Provo.

Two Utah families caught the problem after purchasing DVDs at Deseret Book stores, which are owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The families, one in St. George and another in Riverdale, brought the problem to the attention of store clerks. The DVDs were removed from shelves.

“We’re not going to play around with that, so we pulled them all,” said Gail Halladay, a Deseret Book spokesperson. “We will not put it back on our shelves until we’re 100-percent sure it’s the proper disc that goes into the packaging.”

The PG-rated Sons of Provo chronicles the life of an LDS boy band, Everclean, on its relative journey to stardom.

Adored: Diary of a Porn Star is an unrated independent film that is not pornographic, said Corey Eubanks, spokesperson for Wolfe Video, a distributor of films featuring gay and lesbian characters and stories. However, the film does contain sexual situations and its subject is the life of a gay porn star.

“It’s a very heartwarming film about a porn star that reconnects with his family,” Eubanks said. “It’s not a porn film at all. It’s just about someone who is a porn actor.”

Both films hired the same Los Angeles company to make DVD copies of their movies. Somewhere in the process Adored discs were packaged as Sons of Provo discs.

George Dayton of HaleStorm Entertainment, which produced Sons of Provo, said company policy is not to work with companies that distribute pornographic films. However, attorneys for HaleStorm and the distribution company are arguing over whether Adored is pornographic.

“This is hugely damaging,” Dayton said. “We don’t want our consumers to associate anything with us, whether it’s some soft-core title or whatever, I don’t know. But certainly this title doesn’t lend itself to good, clean family or LDS-centered entertainment.”

WASHINGTON (AP) – The new chief of the city’s AIDS and HIV programs called for a much larger, grassroots effort to combat the epidemic and said she would use reports critical of the agency to help lead its reform.

Marsha Martin, the former head of the national advocacy group AIDS Action who also served in the Clinton administration, took over the District of Columbia HIV/AIDS Administration last month. The previous director was fired after two reports cited widespread mismanagement of funds.

“We will have to create the capacity we lack,” Martin said of her plan for reform. “We want to make the district’s response to HIV a model for the nation, indeed the world.”

One of her first priorities will be to target AIDS prevention education and services at groups such as women, young people and inmates. Reaching gay black men is also a top priority because they account for 46 percent of new HIV infections nationwide, Martin said.

She called for AIDS services to be expanded to all wards of the city, where nearly one in 20 people are infected. But first she must fix a broken agency where late payments to private providers such as the Whitman Walker Clinic may have contributed to recent cutbacks in its services.

D.C. Inspector General Charles Willoughby outlined his report on the agency in testimony before the D.C. Council’s health committee. Auditors found it had been awarding grant money to some groups that didn’t have proper business licenses. In other cases, the agency didn’t even have correct phone numbers or addresses for its service providers.

Willoughby suggested that AIDS program managers reinstate quarterly site visits to their providers as mandated by law.

“I agree that this is the underpinning of what we do,” Martin said.

She proposed changing the name of the office to the Administration for HIV/AIDS Policy and Programs to emphasize its policy role.